First off may I say that I was ecstatic when I heard the Sly Cooper Thieves In Time announcement. Outside of God of War series, Sly Cooper was my second favorite franchise of the last generation. Although I enjoyed my time with, the game there were a few problems I had with it.

Longtime fans of the series have always known the Sly Cooper franchise to have amazing characters. Let me say that Sanzaru does not disappoint in that aspect of the game. Most characters aren’t completely flushed out and while they provided some entertainment, ultimately they lack depth. The game follows the exploits of Bentley, Murray, Sly and Inspector Carmelita Fox as they go on a wild ride through time. The game also features Sly’s ancestors who you learn more about throughout the game and they ultimately prove themselves to be essential parts of the team.

To be fair, the franchise has never been strong from a story perspective, but Thieves In Time’s story may be the weakest of any game in the series. The villains seem thrown in and you are left with the sense that it could have been so much more. Without spoiling anything, the story does get a little stronger towards the end and there are good indications that we’ll see more Sly Cooper on next generation consoles.

In terms of the overall gameplay this is where you feel like you are playing the one of the older titles. Sanzaru keeps it true to a fault with controls and the graphics leave something to be desired. I am not asking them to reinvent the wheel, but what they seem to have done is make a pretty looking PS2 game. At this stage of maturity in this generation you would think they would have the camera angles mastered but it gets wonky quite a bit, not so much during exploration but much to often while you are doing the platforming elements.

My biggest gripe with Thieves In Time is the use of Sixaxis for Bentley’s hacking mini games and a funny but extremely annoying workout montage. Hopefully, Sanzaru puts out a patch for the game because the frame rate and lag completely frustrates you especially the latter when you have quicktime events and the lag becomes extremely noticeable. The final gripe I had with Thieves In Time is the load times, it felt like I was loading up Skyrim every time and this my friend is no Skyrim.

My previous criticisms of the game may make it seem as if I didn’t enjoy my time with Thieves In Time but it’s completely the opposite. As muchas this game frustrated me, and trust me it did, if you are a fan of the Sly Cooper franchise then I would actually recommend you play this game. While I feel like Sanzaru played it safe and graphically its not exceptional, they did stay true to the franchise and it truly felt like a Sly Cooper game.

I am the Co-Ceo of DLT Digital Media. We are a company that is focused on developing new and innovative web properties in addition to developing WordPress based web sites for others. But before I was all that, I was a gamer.